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(HTM) Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
(HTM) First, make me care
MarkusWandel wrote 30 min ago:
So LLMs can't do that? Every LLM-written historical or
pseoudo-historical (i.e. made up) thing that comes up in my Facebook
feed does start with a "hook" like that. Doesn't make them great
articles but obviously you can prompt them to do it.
smeej wrote 54 min ago:
I found it really ironic that the author started with something
attention-grabbing about a topic completely unrelated to his point, but
then made a series of such mundane statements to begin his own writing
that I didn't care enough to go past his first screen. He didn't make
me care about why I should make people care.
wosined wrote 1 hour 19 min ago:
Sorry, but I have to disagree. I don't like books that read like
adverts.
raincole wrote 2 hours 30 min ago:
Is this a good advice? Yes.
And what would happen if everyone followed it? Clickbait titles like
"the third one will surprise you" and TikTok.
d--b wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
The author is right, I care a lot more about the Venice thing than
reading the rest of the article.
orleyhuxwell wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
For the last 30 years I've decided that the best stuff (most engaging
books, stories, experiences in life) require investment. It gets worse
(you go through some pain while exercising) before it gets better.
That's essentially a definition of a good life to me - finding the
things worth sacrificing resources and getting the payoff.
So 'first make me care' to me is a manifest of Gen Z - tiktok -
brainrot approach.
From my perspective you miss most of the really good stuff by
cultivating this approach.
I.e. my favorite books - Tai Pan, Noble House; tv series - Better Call
Saul! - require you to go through so much of initial boredom.
It's also the same discussion as 'learn to code vs only do AI Slop' or
'learn math and algos vs only import functions from libs and never
check what's inside'.
*Exceptions apply, ofc. There are things that hook you and
progressively ad depth, but it's really rare. I.e. Arcane tv show is
both easy to access and quite deep.
Edit:
...so I can imagine math teacher that first tell you what are some
amazing uses of derivatives and integrals - PIDs, SGD, better
estimation, wave functions, generalized description of problems,
accessing interesting physics etc. And after that they make you grind.
I think it would be quite great. But it is so rare, that you have to
make a leap of faith and assume most of the good stuff is boring
initially.
aucisson_masque wrote 5 hours 14 min ago:
Thatâs basically what tv shows do every time. The pilot is
great/awesome then the 10 episodes are boring and the very last one get
exciting enough for you to wait the second season.
Best example: the walking dead season tv shows.
miki123211 wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
What I find extremely off-putting and overused is the pattern of making
you care about an article by saying something about the person being
interviewed, usually related to the interview itself. Think "he was a
balding man[...] drinking his matcha latte[...]" It's always something
which has zero bearing on the situation in question.
Whenever I see this, I immediately turn to cmd-a + cmd-c + `pbpaste |
llm 'summarize this'`
teiferer wrote 6 hours 41 min ago:
> We could easily have a 2026 LLM deliver high-quality editing advice
to fix this up extensively, but it would still be mediocre.
This seems to suggest that a human needs to be in the creative loop,
but that could be short sighted. LLM training has humans in the loop
which optimize for not being bored. That's a reason for LLM texts
typically being recognizeable because at the current stage they are a
little too simplistically flashy. But give it a few iterations and the
machine will excel humans at catching their attention, i.e., making
them care.
As others wrote: Tiktok is already excellent at that. While the content
in there still has humans in the loop, the choice what to show to whom
and when is already entirely mechanical.
DeathArrow wrote 7 hours 5 min ago:
This is even more true for public speaking. Try to hook people from the
start.
coolThingsFirst wrote 9 hours 6 min ago:
What are those sun symbols after paragraph ends.
Always found them interesting.
njarboe wrote 9 hours 28 min ago:
âVenice built a maritime empire from a city that couldnât feed
itself; so who fed itâand why didnât its enemies simply starve it
out?â
I love ancient history and would read a good book about the Venetian
empire, but the sentence answers the final question. Venice was a
maritime empire (it's capital on an island), that's why its enemies
could not starve it out. All in on finding out who fed it.
shalmanese wrote 10 hours 9 min ago:
There is content you write for acquisition and content you write for
retention and my #1 tip for writers who want to engineer growing an
audience is be clear before you sit down to write a piece which itâs
going to be.
Content for acquisition, the readerâs relationship is to the topic,
they have to be convinced the topic is relevant to their life goals but
itâs valuable despite who the topic.
Content for retention, the readers relationship is to you as the writer
and the topic is merely there as a MacGuffin to help illuminate some
aspect of you that is unique.
Business Insider had this down to a science over a decade ago. They
started a series called âSo Expensiveâ, detailing why various
things were expensive, the first 4 videos in the series were: Caviar,
Saffron, Rolexes and Horseshoe Crab Blood. Statistically, some tens of
millions of people have organically had the thought of why the first 3
were expensive but zero people have even wondered why horseshoe crab
blood was expensive. The 4th video was a way to test, of all the people
who were willing to click on the first three, how many were willing to
follow along to the 4th because of a trust in BI? The next 4 in the
series was Vanilla, Silk, Louboutins & Scorpion Venom.
Creating all content for acquisition is both too exhausting and also
sub optimal for the reader because they want deeper stuff to follow as
well. I suggest up to 1 in 3 acquisition articles if you can manage
when starting out but then ramping down to no more than 1 in 10 fairly
quickly or you burn out.
kqr wrote 1 hour 54 min ago:
This mirrors reflections I've had recently as well. I have been, for
the most part, focusing on what you would call "content for
acquisition", i.e. easily relatable, somewhat shallow, extensively
researched articles that show off what I can write at my best.
But in trying to aim for a regular cadence in the past year, I've
realised I cannot maintain that level across the board. So I've
started to write things that aren't as "good", in my flawed
subjective judgment. Yet surprisingly often those are the things I
get positive emails about, from readers who are glad I took the time
to put things into words.
I am trying to come to terms with the idea that some of my more
enthusiastic readers might really be happy to read even things that
aren't up to what I consider to be my standards. But it's deeply
uncomfortable. Triggers my impostor syndrome like little else.
shalmanese wrote 17 min ago:
Another common mistake I see "thoughtfluencer" bloggers make is
they think they need a brand new idea per post. This not only isn't
sustainable, it's bad for the audience.
Instead, I think a successful blog is really about finding your, at
most, 3 - 5 big ideas and instead showing the audience how they
apply in many different context. For example, Matt Levine returns
to a few commmon catchphrases across years of his writing: "People
are worried about bond market liquidity", âEverything Is
Securities Fraudâ etc. that crop up in odd and wonderful ways in
totally new contexts across years of writing. Forming a
relationship with his writing is deepening your appreciation of
these concepts.
ziofill wrote 12 hours 11 min ago:
This reminds me of what my PhD supervisor told me as he was trashing my
first draft of my first paper: âup until this point in your life
youâve been trained to convince someone who knows more than you that
you know something by writing impressive equations and complex
concepts. Now you are the expert and if you do that nobody will read
your papers. And if someone stops after a few sentences youâll lose
citations too.â
muzani wrote 10 hours 4 min ago:
Similar experience with my bachelor's thesis after I presented it.
Supervisor: "Great job with this."
Me: "The assessor didn't seem too impressed."
Supervisor: "You should have sold it better."
That was the point where I realized that all the technical stuff
doesn't really matter if nobody realizes how hard it was or why they
should care.
bawis wrote 10 hours 23 min ago:
What was your PhD thesis about ?
ziofill wrote 2 hours 29 min ago:
I studied the entanglement formed during a quantum nonlinear
process
gizajob wrote 12 hours 37 min ago:
I felt like the movie Marty Supreme completely failed to make me care
about the main character until the final act where the filmmakers had
to pull out all the big easy stops to force me to care about him. A
third of the way in to the movie I was wondering if it was going to be
explained at any point why I should be interested in this guy or care
about his difficult and fairly unremarkable personality. A lot of the
time it seems as if creatives assume that if youâre
watching/reading/engaging with their movie/book/artwork then you
already care enough to care.
nathan_compton wrote 12 hours 39 min ago:
A good writer should be able to write a catchy hook.
A wise person should be able to read text that is flavored like
cardboard. In general, one thing I dislike about this moment, is the
incredible emphasis we place on the first five seconds of everything
because everyone is thinking about all the other things we could be
doing.
But many things are great because of how they feel 20 years later. The
first five seconds of playing a musical instrument is horrible, but 20
years later and it is sublime. Emacs, Vim, are both notoriously
forbidding, and yet, they are wonderful tools. Some things can be
massaged to meet both criteria (I can imagine some emacs configuration
that made it less painful and surfaced its true power in the first five
seconds maybe), but other things are hard by nature and derive their
value from how we have to adapt to them instead of how well they are
adapted to us. I feel like the AI era is going to just accelerate this
trend where everything we interact with is a slick surface and many
people will never experience depth.
Read boring shit.
mmooss wrote 13 hours 28 min ago:
Expanding Gwern's well made point, just a little, is that writing of
any length needs a thesis statement in the first paragraph or so.
Thesis statements are not a new techniques, and these days they are
needed much more because there is so much to read. Many articles don't
state their thesis at all or not for a long time.
I don't have time to read that far to find out if it's worthwhile to
me. Unless you are Satoshi Nakamoto, I'm not going to read far to find
out.
kazinator wrote 14 hours 31 min ago:
Video edition:
1. First, make me care.
2. Then provide an indication (e.g. in the video description) giving
the time in the video where the question starts to be answered.
If you make me somewhat care, but I have to binary search through your
video to skip the rambling, I'm likely to back button out.
NegativeK wrote 13 hours 40 min ago:
First, make me care and tell me the answer. In 30 seconds.
Then expand on it in increasingly advanced levels of detail.
If your knowledge is high, I won't care about the video production.
If you're not getting to the point quickly, you're manipulating the
audience into getting views; education and sharing knowledge isn't
the main driver of your video.
But what I want is idealistic.
davidw wrote 14 hours 33 min ago:
The actual story of how cod from Norway came to be a thing in the
Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia is pretty interesting:
(HTM) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Querini
deadbabe wrote 14 hours 33 min ago:
I hate this. Basically itâs saying use constant clickbait to keep
your reader reading.
Increasingly, readers donât have time for this shit. Be direct, and
if the reader doesnât care, they were never meant to be your reader
anyway. Someone will care, write for them.
imoreno wrote 14 hours 36 min ago:
There's a spectrum of writing, corresponding to supply/demand or
push/pull. The article is giving advice for oversupplied writing, where
the audience doesn't really want to hear you, and you're trying to
badger it into reading it anyway - typically, for some sort of personal
gain (getting an interview, making a sale, promoting a political
cause). Yes, attention hacking is important in this case.
There is also a writing where people are looking for the information,
and they are showing up at your door because they already care.
Presumably you wrote, because you saw the open question, and want to
try answering it. History books, encyclopedias, classic literature by
dead people, falls under this. Ironically, so does the example of
Venice - you would read about Venice if you were already curious; there
is little profit in "making someone care" about Venice otherwise. An
attention grabby style would be forced and counterproductive in this.
oytis wrote 15 hours 3 min ago:
So how did Venice maintain its dominance?
atmosx wrote 15 hours 10 min ago:
Adrian Wooldridge (the Economist) in "Aristocracy of Talent: How
Meritocracy Made the Modern World" argues, rather successfully IMO,
that what made Venice the maritime super-power was meritocracy. Indeed,
he argues, that the fall of the Venitian empire came swiftly when the
Doge was forced to place only Venitians (birthright) to top positions,
instead of the most "capable". Hence the available talent pool shrunk.
The book makes for a fine read IMO: [1] ps. this book came out as a
response to Michael Sandell's "The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of
the Common Good?" which was a best seller at the time.
(HTM) [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Aristocracy-Talent-Meritocracy-Modern-W...
dvrp wrote 15 hours 12 min ago:
Care is the most important trait of people who make great things; it's
not money or time. Is not even skill.
I was interviewing a candidate yesterday and I noticed that a project
inside their personal website was not working. I told him my opinion on
care and he said that he hasn't had the time to deploy it, since he's
been working on it for 2 weeks already and it was working on his local
machine.
A few hours after the interview, the project was online.
The bitter pill of realizing the importance of care is that this
applies not just to literary works, like Gwern's case, but it also
applies to any creative endeavor: writing, music, drawing, and yes,
software engineering.
That CLI tool without a tutorial. That product with a confusing sign-up
flow. The purchase without a confirmation dialog such that I don't feel
I was just scammed.
It's all the same. Lack of care.
I've also noticed that when caring is there, skills follow.
PeterWhittaker wrote 15 hours 28 min ago:
Perhaps I am too much of a curmudgeon, but the example first sentence
made me not care at all - not about Venice, but about the writer's
approach, which seems to want to conjure breathless mystery about
something I could easily look up on Wikipedia (or read in tl;dr
comments in this thread).
It ISN'T Venice you need to make me care about, it's YOU! Why should I
spend any of my time on you?
A good first sentence should make me care about your perspective, at
least for non-fiction about subjects well-studied.
Fiction, obvs, differs. Scalzi's Old Man's War had such a great first
sentence I devoured the series.
danderedandolo wrote 16 hours 3 min ago:
Know your audience is right, and Gwern misses the most interesting
thing about Venice- that it was a merchantile Republic with reasonable
independance from the Catholic Church. Lots of the political ideas
which influenced British and American democracy came from the Italian
city states. Ruskin's Stones of Venice and Bowsma's "Venice and the
defense of republican liberty" capture this well, as do parts of
Quentin Skinner's "The Foundations of Modern Political Thought."
firasd wrote 16 hours 17 min ago:
I'm beginning to think that origin stories are an underrated way to
find these angles. Like why exactly did you start thinking about this
topic. I guess the recipe bloggers were on to this with their long
rambles about where they first tried this dish (albeit it may have been
for SEO too...)
otikik wrote 16 hours 17 min ago:
Careful with this advice. If you max it out you end up with
"You won't believe the weird trick that the city of Venice did to feed
itself"
julianeon wrote 9 hours 2 min ago:
This article is just a slightly upscale version of the million
"YouTube hooks" videos you can find on, well, you know. Down to the
"create a gap" advice.
Once upon a time "one weird trick" was good advice too, before it got
ran into the ground.
mvkel wrote 16 hours 30 min ago:
This seems like a cheap trick to hook someone into a blog post
(ironically, Gwern seems to disregard this almost universally).
If I were reading a book and each chapter started with such a "hook,"
it'd start to feel like a LinkedIn post.
Chapter 1: I didn't know what it felt like to be alive until I was
dead...
Chapter 2: Death was nothing compared to what came next: judgment.
Chapter 3: I thought I knew what judgment was until...
fukukitaru wrote 16 hours 34 min ago:
Chuunibyou-tier slop.
seydor wrote 16 hours 40 min ago:
10 reasons why clickbait is good for you:
1)
blauditore wrote 16 hours 44 min ago:
I disagree with the stated examples and literally quit reading there.
yetihehe wrote 16 hours 46 min ago:
And thus "question-bait" was born.
Jap2-0 wrote 16 hours 51 min ago:
Okay, because no one seems to be answering the Venice question:
- They had a strong navy (and shipbuilding capacity), making a blockade
difficult
- They traded with many nations, so no one group could cut off their
food supply
- Fish
- They had a near monopoly on the trade of salt and spices, the former
of which was important to everyone and the latter of which was
important to aristocrats
(note: I read a few sources but this is not thorough research)
Animats wrote 14 hours 2 min ago:
Venice is the extreme "tail wagging the dog" situation. Venice is
dinky. It's not much bigger than San Francisco. Yet it was a major
European power for centuries.
BurningFrog wrote 10 hours 5 min ago:
Venice was small by land mass, but controlled the Eastern
Mediterranean, and therefore the Black Sea endpoint of the Silk
Road, which was immensely profitable.
Consequently, Vasco da Gama rounding Africa in 1498 doomed Venice
as a great power.
(All from memory, 100% factuality not guaranteed)
eulgro wrote 14 hours 15 min ago:
Thanks. Ironically, the article started off great with that but
clearly it wasn't going to answer the question, so I only read the
first paragraph.
tpoacher wrote 16 hours 53 min ago:
Counterpoint.
People our so tired of sensational intros and baiting questions which
bury the actual lede up to the point where you discover it requires an
annual subscription to find out the actual answer, that now it's
actually counterproductive to start with an interesting "question".
It's facts first or gtfo. Prove to me that I'm not going to waste my
time until you deliver what you promised, by delivering enough of that
relevant background up front, otherwise I don't have time for your
shenanigans.
marginalia_nu wrote 16 hours 38 min ago:
Starting with the point (a.k.a. the inverted pyramid) is actually a
pretty good way of finding readers that care[1]. I fairly often
often put the conclusion in the title, and must have been on the HN
front page over 20 times by now.
This is obviously not the only way to construct an article (nor the
only one I employ), but it is surprisingly reliable, and will attract
and retain the readers who are actually interested in what you have
to say, while letting those that aren't interested find something
else.
(HTM) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)
wtetzner wrote 10 hours 59 min ago:
> Starting with the point (a.k.a. the inverted pyramid) is actually
a pretty good way of finding readers that care[1].
I think this is an important distinction. I would argue that it's
better to make the point clear to find readers that care, than to
try to make all readers care.
underdeserver wrote 17 hours 1 min ago:
Probably should be marked (2025).
zahlman wrote 16 hours 37 min ago:
It literally says 2026 in the URL. Perhaps it was written before the
new year and published now, but that doesn't seem particularly
relevant to the advice given anyway.
tolerance wrote 17 hours 4 min ago:
You know Iâve never read an article by Gwern that made me feel like
he was sensitive to this idea, one that in my head essentially breaks
down to the use of narrative and the leverage of âstakesâ that
inform the reader of kinds of conflict that make a narrative special.
Iâm reminded of a remark made by David Foster Wallace (on KCRW? Or
oft-repeated elsewhere) about how he had to come to terms with the
purpose of writing not being to show off how smart you are to the
reader. Instead your writing has to evince some kind of innate
investment to the reader that piques their genuine interests and
intrigue.
A lot of writers are tainted by the expectations set in grade school.
Write for a grade and good writing is what yields a good grade
according to the standards set by the subject which often is not
âCompositionâ but more like âProve to me that you remember
everything we mentioned in class about the French Revolutionâ.
Iâve never felt drawn into an article by Gwern at least not in the
way that I have been by some writing by Maciej CegÅowski, for example.
Reading Gwern I am both overwhelmed by the adornments to the text
(hyperlinks, pop-ups, margin notes; other hypertext doodads and
portals) and underwhelmed by the substance of the text itself. I
donât consider Paul Graham a literary griot either. But I find that
his own prose is bolstered by a kind of clarity and asceticism that is
informative and not entirely void of good style and form.
Lawrence McEnery of the University of the Chicago contributed a lot of
good thinking to this kind of stuff though.
This wasnât meant to be a criticism of the author of this postâs
own work. But here thatâs how itâs left. I havenât come across
any writing of his thatâs as intriguing as "Empires Without Farms:
The Case of Veniceâ seems. If anyone has any recommendations, do
share.
alexdobrenko wrote 1 hour 9 min ago:
> Maciej CegÅowski
Where do you recommend one starts with his writing?
And who else do you love to read?
ashdksnndck wrote 7 hours 16 min ago:
My feeling about Gwern is that I won the jackpot if he happens to
have written on a subject I want to know more about. His writing is a
wealth of information. It not always compelling if Iâm not already
interested.
keiferski wrote 7 hours 28 min ago:
Thanks for writing this, Iâve had similar feelings about a variety
of writers over the years.
My conclusion was just that some people write to signal their
intelligence to other people by including as many references and
complex ideas as possible, with basically zero attention paid to the
form of the writing itself. It is just a form of information
transfer, not a particular interest in the writing art form.
And so if youâre not interested in the topics theyâre talking
about, and you donât care about evaluating the writerâs
intelligence, the whole thing just seems rambling and pompous.
I wish these writers would study essays that are praised for their
clarity and brevity. Or haiku, which is defined by its brevity. Truly
great writers IMO do not write 10 sentences when one will do.
gizajob wrote 12 hours 33 min ago:
Itâs a good quote from DFW but like all great useful pithy
quotations itâs usually negated somehow by the activities of the
utterer elsewhere. It seemed almost granted that one of the
metaconcepts within Infinite Jest was that his ability to churn out
reams of that stuff was far in excess of your ability to even read
through it.
ofalkaed wrote 11 hours 42 min ago:
Assuming the poster's recollection of the quote is correct, there
is nothing to be negated, coming to terms with something does not
mean you overcame it, No clue how close that is to the actual quote
but it sounds like Wallace's phrasing.
tolerance wrote 10 hours 58 min ago:
In conversation with Michael Silverblatt in 1996 (this is from a
machine generated transcript, Iâll do my best to clean up after
itâs attempts to parse DFWâs stammering):
> ...I guess when I was in my twenties, like deep down underneath
all the bullshit, what I really believed was that the point of
fiction was to show that the writer was really smart. And that
sounds terrible to say. But I think looking back, that's what was
going on. And uh I don't think I really understood what
loneliness was when when I was a young man and and now I've got a
much less clear idea of what the point of art is, but I think
it's got something to do with loneliness, and something to do
with setting up a conversation between human beings. And I know
that when I started this book I wanted to IâI had veryâI had
very vague and not very ambitious ambitions. And one was I wanted
to do something really sad. I'd done comedy before. I wanted to
do something really sad. And I wanted to do something about what
was sad about America. And um Iâthere's aâthere's a fair
amount of of weird and hard technical stuff going on in this
book, but I mean one reason why I'm willing to go around and talk
to people about it and that I'm sorta proud of it in a way I
haven't been about earlier stuff is that I feel like
IâWhatever's hard in the book is in service of something that
at least for me is good and important. And it's embarrassing to
talk about because I think it sounds kind of cheesy. Um IâIâI
sort of think like all the way down kind of to my butthole I was
a different person coming up with this book than I was about my
earlier stuff. And I'm not saying my earlier stuff was all crap,
you know, but it's just it seems like I think when you're very
young and until you've sort of uh you know, faced various
darknesses, um it's very difficult to understand howâhow You're
welcome to cut all this out if this just sounds like, you know, a
craft product or something.
The part about writing having to "evince some kind of innate
investment to the reader that piques their genuine interests and
intrigueâ is my own interpretation of what I took from
interviews between Wallace and Silverblatt on KCRW between 1996
and 2006. Skimming through the entire transcript I have
(thereâs a 2+ hour compilation of all the interviews on
Youtube) this is probably a mixture of remarks made in 1996
(Infinite Jest) [1] and 1997 (A Supposedly Fun Thing Iâll Never
Do Again) [2]. I vaguely remember a remark of his along the lines
of the duty of a writer to âalways let the reader know what the
stakes areâ. Or something like that.
Another quote from the 1996 interview in attempt to support my
previous statements:
> [Fictionâs] got a very weird and complicated job because part
of its job is toâis toâteach; Teach the reader, communicate
with the reader, establish some sort of relationship with the
reader where the reader is willing on a neurological level to
expend effort; to look hard enough at the jellyfish to see that
it's pretty. Andâand that stuff's in that kind of effort is
very hard to talk about and it's real scary because you can't be
sure whether you've done it or not. And it's what makes you sort
of clutch your heart when somebody says, I really like this...
My favorite one may be from the conversation they had in 2000:
> IâI thinkâIâIâI think somewhere in the late eighties or
somewhere some at some point when that sort of minimalist fiction
began to pass from vogue It wasn't that the class questions
changed, it was that I think the class questions disappeared.
Andâand questions that were issues that were fundamentally
aboutâabout class and inclusion became more for people like
maybe my age a little younger, questions ofâof corporation, um
corporations and consumers and consuming models versus kind of
alternative uh homemade quote unquote nonânonâcorporate
transactions. I don't know if this makes any sort of sense. Where
IâI know for me a certain kind of smoothness, um, that you
could thâthat you can identify with resolution, easily
identified kind of black and white um heroes and villains, um
standard standardly satisfying endings involving the
gratification of romance or, you know, epistemological problems.
I associate with corporate entertainment whoseâwhose agenda is
fundamentally financial, whoseâsomeâsome of andâsome of
itâsâsome of it's quite good. Um butâbut its
fundamentalâits fundamental orientation is um there âthere's
noâthere's no warmth in it toward the reader or no attempt to
involve the reader or the audience in a kind of relationship or
interaction. It's aâit's aâit's a transaction of a certain
kind of gratification in exchange for in exchange for money. [3]
[1] < [1] > [2] < [1] > [3] < [1] >
(HTM) [1]: https://www.kcrw.com/shows/bookworm/stories/david-foster...
(HTM) [2]: https://www.kcrw.com/shows/bookworm/stories/david-foster...
(HTM) [3]: https://www.kcrw.com/shows/bookworm/stories/david-foster...
trinsic2 wrote 12 hours 36 min ago:
Besides the quote, which I think is a good practice, having never
read his stuff, he seems like he publishes his notes directly from
his note taking app.
That's fine if you want to publish ideas in short form, but I don't
think any of that is considered a piece of work that has been fully
fleshed out. I don't really see any stuff that's designed to actually
be a publication.
mcmoor wrote 13 hours 3 min ago:
I feel the same. I found that blog from SSC/ACX and I still much
prefer SSC/ACX despite gwern discussing topics that are much much
more relevant to my interests (sw dev, Haskell, anime). I can't
formulate why but your analysis sounds close enough.
flexagoon wrote 11 hours 29 min ago:
ACX is honestly an incredible writer. I think it's a very high bar
to clear.
orthoxerox wrote 5 hours 58 min ago:
Yes, Scott has a natural talent for writing (there's an article
where he explicitly says he isn't proud of his prose because it
just comes naturally to him, but is immensely proud of getting a
B in Calculus back in pre-med, or something along these lines).
mmooss wrote 13 hours 37 min ago:
Gwern's point stands on its own merits regardless of what you think
of the rest of their blog. And the evidence is overwhelmingly the
other way: Lots of people, and especially lots on HN, are very
engaged with Gwern's writing, so Gwern seems to be onto something
about how to engage readers. What do you think that is?
That would be valuable analysis. Or provide constructive feedback.
The complaints aren't constructive and don't inform us about the OP.
To me they seem pointless and in the wrong spirit, especially when
someone is in the room, within earshot.
Edit: removed an error in what I said originally, sorry.
weitendorf wrote 10 hours 18 min ago:
I think I know the answer, but people donât want to hear it.
Gwern has a kind of formula/structure really effectively markets
his blog to the HN audience, which is Not Bad Actually, just
effective messaging + giving people what they want.
You canât really separate the content from its medium, its
contex, and its audience if youâre thinking about âwhy is this
successfulâ (why does the medium express the content n a
particular content that works for some particular audience). What
the blog post is really about is not âwritingâ or creating good
content per-se, but how to structure content for a
blog-like/feed-based medium where youâre competing for clicks,
views, attention, participation in external narratives, and
relevancy/memorability with an audience mostly looking to be
entertained or scratch some curiosity itch.
Gwern has a good formula for that which matched the HN context and
audience:
1. Pique interest and grab attention. Give me a reason to click.
2. Let the reader in on the secret, you and me vs all these other
idiots. Validate me.
3. Back it all up with sources/references and a post that
articulates something the reader already was aware of but
fundamentally agreed with. Teach me something but make me feel like
âFinally someone who gets itâ rather than challenged or
threatened.
4. Do the work to actually deliver on the hook. Satisfy my
curiosity and give me a reason to come back and share it.
None of this is even necessarily manipulative, itâs just the form
that successfully competes in a click-driven market for attention
and information (the context). Nobody has to click or read through
or share or comment on the thing. Most likely very few will click
through to the sources, but they might peep them or be interested
to know that they exist. Itâs very effective progressive
disclosure.
The thing is, this audience REALLY does not want to believe that
they can be marketed to or that their decision making is many ways
pretty damn emotional/predictable. Gwern does an excellent job
validating that for them AND successfully marketing to them anyway.
I think thatâs the part thatâs missing from this post.
The context is completely non-captive, the audience wants to feel
smart, and believes that they are âtoo smart to be marketed
toâ. Here they are scrolling through an attention market looking
for interesting information that they need to be convinced to
click, read through, share, and engage with. Why was the link
shared and content created to being with, and how did it structure
itself to fit its content/audience, and why does a particular
structure/messaging work while others don't?
The word for all of that is Marketing. It's just a Good Thing when
done right.
mvc wrote 1 hour 42 min ago:
> each me something but make me feel like âFinally someone who
gets itâ rather than challenged or threatened.
Ironically, AI has been making me feel like this lately. But it
taught me all of this (i.e. your exact point about the
psycological levers employed by people/organizations who
understand why stuff goes viral).
So is that real or am I just being successfully marketed to, now
by AI.
weitendorf wrote 1 hour 14 min ago:
I guess my meta-point is that "marketing" shouldn't be such a
dirty word, because done well enough, it's effective
communication that gives people what they want/helps them AND
makes them feel good. My own comment basically does the same
thing I said he did, lol.
The point of calling it marketing is that this blog post is
explaining hooks, basic content marketing (ie be entertaining
or interesting), progressive disclosure, and understanding your
target audience: standard marketing concepts. You can find a
lot of info if you research them by those terms.
Gwern's audience, in an ironic twist of fate, think that being
marketed to = being tricked or manipulated by an evil person,
so here he is explaining basic content marketing concepts to
the people his blog is marketed towards, who hate marketing and
believe themselves immune to it.
AI does the same thing to you because 1. most of the web is
marketing 2. why shouldn't it be nice to you AND help you? 3.
you keep coming back for more, right? And is that necessarily a
bad thing?
I highly recommend a deep dive into signalling theory if you're
interested in learning more, it's completely changed how I
think about communication and behavior, even my own.
mvc wrote 37 min ago:
Sure, when it's fronting a great product, I have no issue
with marketing. But it can be abused, which makes people
suspicious (but not invulnerable as we know).
Anyway, I am currently in "lean in and find out" mode with AI
:-)
Not quite at Gas Town yet but I've dropped a lot of baggage
and willing to take a hike to try and find it.
mmooss wrote 9 hours 34 min ago:
I think that's a very interesting, thoughtful response.
> You canât really separate the content from its medium, its
contex, and its audience
Yes, I completely agree.
> the audience wants to feel smart, and believes that they are
âtoo smart to be marketed toâ. Here they are scrolling
through an attention market looking for interesting information
that they need to be convinced to click, read through, share, and
engage with. Why was the link shared and content created to being
with, and how did it structure itself to fit its
content/audience, and why does a particular structure/messaging
work while others don't?
> The word for all of that is Marketing.
I think that overemphasizes the significance of a 'market'.
'Market' is used as a metaphor for many things, such as
'attention market', but also implies commercial, transactional,
profit-oriented relationships, which don't seem like such strong
motivations here (though I can't speak for the author). And to me
your claims seem assume that the author's primary goal is more
attention - they are in an 'attention market', they do all these
things with intent to drive more page views.
They could have many other motivations. As a general concept,
people love to share what they know, sort of like the drive to
make FOSS. Maybe the author just loves to learn things and the
blog posts provide an excuse; I've fallen into similar hobbies -
without regret. Maybe they feel validated, or it relieves stress,
or it's an escape from a job they hate, etc. There are so many
possibilities in addition to commerce, attention, or profit.
I do agree that the HN "audience wants to feel smart, and
believes that they are âtoo smart to be marketed toâ." Those
are the easiest people to persuade.
tolerance wrote 12 hours 46 min ago:
I just finished this response to a sibling comment of yours: [1] I
think it inadvertently touches on some valid points that you raise,
especially the one about criticizing people within earshot.
> Gwern seems to be onto something about how to engage readers.
What do you think that is?
I think that people read for different reasons; there are different
kinds of readers. I think that thereâs a dissonance between the
point that he makes in this article and my perception of the rest
of his work. Thatâs all. Of course defending my opinion so that
it is received in good faith reveals more than I want to be taken
as an assumption about what I think about Gwern the person, but
these assumptions are inevitable when weâre talking about writing
to incite intrigue in other human beings and how writing is
peculiar form of expression and exchange not just of ideas but also
of personality.
Some people may read Gwernâs work and find that its informational
depth satisfies their interests as readers. âEmbryo Selection For
Intelligenceâ sounds like an interesting topic to me, but not
interesting enough on its own to make me 1) wait for the page to
load because the entire page took approximately 13 seconds to to
yield almost 12MB of data and 2) read it all, in the form what is
self-described as a âcost benefit analysisâ on the issue, which
makes it seem like more technical/scientifically-driven piece of
writing as far as what we can expect by way of style. [1] Lots of
people on HN, I assume, are of the sort who are indeed engaged by
technically-minded expositions on a subject and if they are at all
interested in narrative then they reach for fiction writing and may
even find non-fiction books that attempt to wind narratives as
wastes of time unless they are immediately entertaining. And
entertainment is not something that I intend to advocate for. But I
suspect that there are a lot of readers on HN who view reading as a
means to an endâthe information; and the more the merrier and
merit-worthy the writing is thought to be.
Gwern discusses a lot of topics. Iâm probably sharing my reaction
to the stuff that Iâve read from him that I think lacks
personality. If my impression of the dominant literary bloc on HN
is accurate then maybe Iâve only come across the
information-dense-but-stylistically-lacking prose served on a
Xanaduâs sled of a web page sort of work of Gwern's.
Itâs been 4 hours. I am yet to come across an "Empires Without
Farms: The Case of Veniceâ in his oeuvre.
> If you crack open some of the mustier books about the
Internetâyou know the ones Iâm talking about, the ones which
invoke Roland Barthes and discuss the sexual transgressing of
MUDsâone of the few still relevant criticisms is the concern that
the Internet by uniting small groups will divide larger ones.
Loading in 6 seconds and serving a little more than 4MB of content,
"The Melancholy of Subculture Societyâ seems like a good
candidate. [2] [1] < [2] > [2] < [3] >
(HTM) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46760312
(HTM) [2]: https://gwern.net/subculture
(HTM) [3]: https://gwern.net/embryo-selection
mmooss wrote 9 hours 52 min ago:
That's a great response; thanks. I would guess you are right that
Gwern particularly appeals to the HN crowd, though that might be
saying the obvious. Personally - and I don't think my perception
is somehow superior to anyone else's - I think Gwern's writing
has a clear voice.
> I just finished this response to a sibling comment of yours:
[1] I didn't write the parent comment there.
> the entire page took approximately 13 seconds to to yield
almost 12MB of data
13 seconds doesn't seem like much to me compared to the time
required to read those pages. I think that objectively, it
doesn't have any economic impact. But that is relativley slow.
(HTM) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46760312
tolerance wrote 8 hours 36 min ago:
Oops, uhh.
s/sibling comment of/comment thatâs a sibling to
Hope it makes more sense now.
mmooss wrote 8 hours 29 min ago:
Oh I see. Yes, that makes much more sense. :)
ofalkaed wrote 13 hours 48 min ago:
>David Foster Wallace (on KCRW? Or oft-repeated elsewhere) about how
he had to come to terms with the purpose of writing not being to show
off how smart you are to the reader.
He expands on this in his conversation with Bryan Garner (of Garner's
Modern English Grammar) published as Quack this Way, and I think he
gets to the core issue, which is that your ideas are not interesting
to anyone but you; if you are showing off how smart you are, you are
assuming the reader will find your ideas as important and interesting
as you do. It is the writer's job to show the reader why they should
be interested, why they should care.
Infinite Jest is a also a good example of something which goes
against TFA's point, it opens with a very sterile, impersonal,
literal and completely disconnected first person narrative, he gives
us nothing to care about. But it evolves, but he still doesn't give
us anything to care about, just has the narration turn in on itself
despite it seeming to have nothing to turn in onto. All he really
gives us is the suggestion that there is something more than what we
can see. He gets us interested and curious but I don't think we
really care at that point.
tolerance wrote 12 hours 3 min ago:
To his credit and with the exception of mentioning an objective to
show his smarts off to readers (which I donât think he wants to
do anyhow) Gwern informs us that he is assuming that we will find
what he writes as useful as he does, because his objective is to
write things that are useful to himself:
> The goal of these pages is not to be a model of concision,
maximizing entertainment value per word, or to preach to a choir by
elegantly repeating a conclusion. Rather, I am attempting to
explain things to my future self, who is intelligent and
interested, but has forgotten. What I am doing is explaining why I
decided what I did to myself and noting down everything I found
interesting about it for future reference. I hope my other readers,
whomever they may be, might find the topic as interesting as I
found it, and the essay useful or at least entertainingâbut the
intended audience is my future self.
â < [1] >
We can reconcile this with the purport of the writing of his that
weâre discussing nowâitâs a notice with his future self in
mind. And we can compare and contrast the above quote and the
aforementioned piece with some of PGâs writing which I find is
meant to be public-facing literature at full bloom. [1][2]
I think thereâs a difference between 'writing for my future
selfâ and âwriting with the public in mindâ. Howard & Barton
(1986) would argue that they represent separate stages of the
writing process and I agree with that and prefer writing that is
primed for the latter form. [3] I associate the maxim âFirst,
make me careâ with the latter as well and by-and-large feel like
Gwernâs writingâthat which Iâve come across most
frequentlyâis geared toward the former form. Which Iâm sure
serves him well, as well as Iâm sure itâs served well to those
who enjoy his work. Iâm yet to determine whether thatâs a good
or bad thing.
As Iâve cited earlier, some consider Gwern's writing to evoke a
sort of misanthropy. But hey...Iâm sure thereâs someone else to
say the same about Paul Graham and his stuff. Iâll withhold
judgement against the both of them on that matterâfor nowâlest
I get caught unprepared to be deemed one myself. [1] < [2] > [2] <
[3] > [3] < [4] >
(HTM) [1]: https://gwern.net/about#target-audience
(HTM) [2]: https://www.paulgraham.com/field.html
(HTM) [3]: https://www.paulgraham.com/useful.html
(HTM) [4]: https://search.worldcat.org/title/13329813
ofalkaed wrote 10 hours 42 min ago:
I don't think we need to credit him or reconcile anything, what
he says is not wrong or hypocritical, it is just his view of what
makes a good blog post. I disagree with him but the only
consequence for him is that I won't read his blog unless I feel
compelled to because I want to join in the discussion on
somewhere like HN and don't want to be one of those people who
interjects into a discussion on an article they did not read,
even if the conversation is clearly about the title and not the
article or marginally related topics or I simply want to make a
marginally related comment.
For me, it is the way he presents and develops ideas that
prevents me from reading, it reminds me of reading a tutorial on
how to reach his conclusion. Some people probably like the style,
some probably don't care about the style, and some like me
struggle to even skim a short post like TFA. But I find a great
deal of what is on the internet to be difficult to read and think
nothing of reading a book like Infinite Jest in a week. I am not
the target audience.
Edit: Fixed some editing weirdness, I think.
tolerance wrote 9 hours 43 min ago:
We seem to be of like mind on this matter then. I look forward
to us reconvening the next time Gwern hits the front page and
we each feel compelled to voice some kind of informed dissent
on the subject. Dissent probably isnât the right word here
because I donât think either of us actually disagree with
what heâs saying.
How fun is a conversation once itâs established that both
parties are in agreement about something in principle? Does one
probe to be provocative?
I place high expectations on writing that 1) I feel is right up
my alley because I think Iâm already familiar with the topic
and 2) Iâm unfamiliar with but am eager to learn aboutâit
sparks my curiosity. Not all writing meets these expectations
and this is probably why Iâm disgusted by the though of using
LLMs for information about subjects I have a genuine enthusiasm
for and can care less about doing so for others, at least until
I can figure out whether I want to know more about it. Then the
subject becomes forbidden to prompt about.
> For me, it is the way he presents and develops ideas that
prevents me from reading, it reminds me of reading a tutorial
on how to reach his conclusion.
My assumption is that this kind of writing exists somewhere
along the same strand of writing that lends itself to whatâs
expected from some writing in public school (âGood writing is
what shows the reader/teacher that you correctly grasped the
material that was taught to youâ); writing that is received
well by âThe Massesâ¢â or some in-group (âGood writing
is what shows the reader/audience that youâre beliefs are in
correct alignment with theirsâ); something like a
mathematical proof (a more literal representation of how to
reach a conclusion if I correctly understand what a
mathematical proof is); and a well-formed atomic note written
for private consideration.
rrvsh wrote 14 hours 39 min ago:
I agree, the citations having the little icons were distracting and I
had to force myself not to skim. Still though, it's a very
illuminating article that applies the very simple concept we all
learned in theory to hook the reader but never really seen explicit
examples of. I also found the similar pages feature interesting!
davedx wrote 14 hours 39 min ago:
Everyone's a critic, hey?
Jach wrote 15 hours 32 min ago:
I think for a lot of people, simply having "Author: Gwern" (or some
other author they like) is the sufficient bit of information to make
them care, it's generic on the content. I've read a lot of not very
stylish writing simply because of who wrote it. Or in other words,
"Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your
newsletter." Whatever quirks of bad style there are will get a pass
because I already care -- style is more important when you want to
reach someone who hasn't heard of you.
tolerance wrote 13 hours 21 min ago:
I like where youâre heading with this and to a degree I think
that it leads toward considerations about the personality of the
author in tow with their writing and writing ability which on its
head evokes questions about what makes a person, well, personable.
Which turns this into a sensitive discussion about what one can
glean about an authorâs character traits based on their writing
style and when the author in question is only a âpublic figureâ
in the eyes of the niche collection of online enclaves who are even
aware that Gwern exists it becomes tough to candidly critique his
literary persona with the sort of freedom that one may have when
talking about say, some guy whoâs written for the Atlantic for 30
years and is further from the spaces where criticisms about his
work are held.
My criticisms about Gwernâs writing is not meant to be
taken...ahem...personally in the sense that I donât want to use
Gwern as a subject for whatever literary critique Iâm trying to
proffer beyond how useful it isâand is presenting itselfâas a
fine case to help make whatever point Iâm trying to make more
clear about how Writing style is inextricable from and indicative
of personality or lack thereof. And this is probably a part of what
makes reading and writing such a profound experience.
One of the most interesting remarks about Gwernâs writing is this
comment [1]:
> Everything I read from gwern has this misanthropic undertones.
It's hard to put a finger on it exactly, but it grits me when I try
reading him.
â < [1] >
While I can't agree with the entirety of `molaâs commentâI
simply havenât put that much thought into making as grave of an
evaluation into Gwernâs character as such a judgement would
demand, nor am I that interested in deliberating over such an
evaluationâit still resonates with me as a reader and youâll
find in my comment downthread from `molaâs remark that itâs at
least plausible that an affinity for self-expression and
intellectualizing about the world doesnât necessitate an interest
in the rest of its inhabitants in a way that causes me not to find
the thesis behind âFirst, make me careâ to be coloured with a
stroke of irony, considering whoâs behind it.
You say "style is more important when you want to reach someone who
hasn't heard of you.â I agree with that and I reckon that itâs
still style that forms a non-trivial amount of how you identify
with âwhoâ the author is once youâve become familiar with
theyâre work and can set an expectation for why their ideas may
be worthwhile to engage with in the first place. Again, Paul
Grahamâs writing has a style although no where to the degree that
Maciej CegÅowski does. You can evince characteristics about each
of them relative to how and what they write about. You can even
speculate on ways that their respective personalities could lead to
friction between them. [2]
When we interrogate the âwhoâ behind âwho wroteâ we are
making judgements about the personality of the author and how that
that makes us interested in their ideas. Today there are various
non-literary mediums that give us a glimpse at a personâs
personality with which we can anticipate whether itâs worth
reading what they write. But if all you go by is their writing then
how they write is about the only way for you to speculate about
'who' the author is and what theyâre like as a person.
There are probably holes in this line of reasoning but I donât
think the lines between writing style, personal appeal and the
ability to appeal to readers through how you writeâeffectively
signaling to your personality in the process!âare as distinct as
I think youâre portraying them. Whatâs the opposite of
orthogonal? Correlated?
To end: Gwernâs writing lacks personality to me. This makes it
hard to reconcile with the point heâs making in this article
(which I agree with!) and my perception of his own writing (which
invariably and perhaps even unfortunately invites speculation into
any writerâs own personality).
Again, please, Does Gwern have anything that sounds as striking as
âEmpires Without Farms: The Case of Veniceâ or was that example
a tacit hat tip to Brett Devereauxâs work? I donât think the
guy is a misanthrope but I do sense a wall of textâboth
figuratively and literallyâbetween he and I when engaging with
his writing. He is evidently well and widely read and despite my
dislike for the visual form of his website I think that it is still
a solid technical display of hypertext for personal web design and
information architecture. But in spite of this all I find that it
lacks depth, not intellectually but personally. âSpirituallyâ,
if you will. [1] Now you may be able figure out my reasoning for
the first paragraph re: public figures and criticism. I guess
thatâs this puts me in the camp of those who donât believe
thatâs possible to separate art from the artist. Discussing one
commands a look into the other, otherwise why bother with âartâ
and âartistsâ at all?
[2] Those who are familiar with both Grahamâs and CegÅowskiâs
writing can take a guess at who once called the other a âbig ole
weenisâ in an exchange on this very site.
(HTM) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42135302
bee_rider wrote 10 hours 9 min ago:
> Again, please, Does Gwern have anything that sounds as striking
as âEmpires Without Farms: The Case of Veniceâ or was that
example a tacit hat tip to Brett Devereauxâs work?
I donât quite see the link to Devereaux here. But, if anything,
I think Devereaux is not at all similar to the writing style in
the âEmpire without farmsâ thing here. On ACOUP, he just
bluntly tells you what the plan is and then executes it. He does
engaging content and funny stuff, but it is sprinkled throughout
the text rather than being a gimmicky hook to draw the reader in.
For example, [1] Starts out with one paragraph about where we are
in the series of blog posts and a super zoomed out description of
what the series is about.
Then a paragraph about the fact that he had been planning an
alternative ordering for the blog posts. If I donât already
care, thatâs not going to make me care.
Then we finally get a direct no-frills statement describing the
specific question to be answered in this post. Itâs blunt and
it doesnât ask a âget ready for a surpriseâ type question.
I like it. This is a confident and adult writing style. To me,
âVenice ruled half the Mediterranean. And yet⦠it had no
farms. How do you have an empire without farms?â
Comes off as an author a trying to convince the reader that they
have something clever to say. Almost always this is the result of
worrying too much about style.
IMO, the best way to come up with a clever phrasing is to start
by writing down a direct version first, to figure out what you
really want to say. Then, just donât write a clever phrasing,
the reader will appreciate your respect for their time.
(HTM) [1]: https://acoup.blog/2026/01/16/collections-hoplite-wars-p...
tolerance wrote 7 hours 32 min ago:
Youâre right. I was just riffing on the implied subject
matter based on the title of Gwern's imaginary essay and how it
reminds me of something that Devereaux would write about. In
asking if he had anything that sounds as striking as the title
thatâs as far as I was taking the link between the two.
The âserializedâ voice that Devereaux uses works.
Especially when you start from the beginning. I only hopped
around a few posts while browsing his archive, but what Iâm
imagining is from the first post in 2019 all the way until the
more recent one you shared, is an ongoing conversation. [1] Or
something like a tour (âWelcome to my collection!â).
Confident is a good way to describe the style. I like how I
feel immediately orientated about the subject matter and the
context surrounding how the writing came about.
Hereâs a similar introduction from 2022:
> This week weâre going to start tackling a complex and much
debated question: âhow bad was the fall of Rome (in the
West)?â This was the topic that won the vote among the
patrons of the ACOUP Senate. The original questions here were
âwhat caused the loss of state capacity during the collapse
of the Roman Empire in the Westâ and âhow could science
fiction better reflect such a collapse or massive change?â By
way of answer, I want to boil those questions down into
something a bit more direct: how bad was the fall of Rome in
the West?
â < [1] >
I deliberately sought out the introduction of an essay that was
the beginning of a series instead of one that is...Part IVb.
Whoever is reading Part IVb of the history of "the heavy
infantry of the ancient Greek poleis" is probably too invested
and enthused not to care about meta-commentary about
alternative sequencing for the series. The quote above is from
a Part I entry and I canât say that the meta-commentary that
similarly starts this off makes me less interested in it. The
intrigue is set early on and with confidence. If I didnât
care before, well I do now. I sort of feel compelled to care. I
have at least a weeks worth of lectures to catch up on about
the fall of Western Rome and thereâs apparently a senateâs
worth of similarly-invested readers who have already
deliberated that the severity of its collapse is of utmost
importance this week.
`Jach madÄ a comment elsewhere about how âstyle is more
important when you want to reach someone who hasn't heard of
you.â [2] The thing is that in Devereauxâs case most of the
essays that Iâve found begin with this âcasual
professorialâ sort of tone. Iâm meandering and I donât
want to conclude all of this with a point that misinterprets
your own to forge the upper-hand in an argument that doesnât
exist.
Referring back to the sample âFarmâ essay:
> Venice ruled half the Mediterranean. And yet⦠it had no
farms. How do you have an empire without farms?
I donât think that this is cleverly phrased or that it's a
set up for something clever later on. At least I donât think
so if weâre using the word in a way that evokes strokes of
ingenuity and not with a negative connotation, like âtriteâ
or âslickâ. It may be âcleverâ in a sense like âThis
sounds like the intro from a page straight of a pop history NYT
best sellerâ. I could go with that. Yeah, it is indicative of
something I probably wouldnât care to read not only because
it comes across as âcleverâ, but more so unsophisticated.
Let us bear in mind however, that this is a softball
introduction used to make a point. It looks like neither of us
are convinced that it does so successfully anyhow.
Devereauxâs second post, and first essay on acoup.blog start
off:
> Evaluating armor designs, especially in works of fantasy or
speculative fiction, can be a tricky business. Often times, we
can see a design and know something is off about it, but not
quite what. Or alternatively, fans and internet commentators
will blast this or that design in TV or a movie simply because
it does not conform to their own narrow vision of what armor is
âsupposedâ to look like. Iâve seen fictional examples of
gambesons, muscle cuirasses, mirror-plates and pectorals all
mocked by self-appointed expects â and these are armors that
were worn historically!
> So how can we do better assess if armor âmakes sense,â
even when it is a non-historical design?
From what I could find, this is the sole departure from the
âserializedâ, âcasual professorialâ voice I described
earlier. What would you call this? I think it lacks the air of
sophistication and in media res meta-commentary that the rest
of his writing begins with. To `Jachâs point it does appear
to stylistically serve as an introduction of its own to the
author himself.
Informative is what Iâd call it. And there are so many
different ways to inform the reader depending on the
circumstance.
> Venice ruled half the Mediterranean. And yet⦠it had no
farms. How do you have an empire without farms?
This is uninformative. Clever? If information is to be turned
like a trick, for sure. [1] < [2] > [2] < [3] >
(HTM) [1]: https://acoup.blog/2022/01/14/collections-rome-decline...
(HTM) [2]: https://acoup.blog/2019/05/03/blog-overview-a-collecti...
(HTM) [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46759159
Jach wrote 11 hours 15 min ago:
It's risky business inferring personality from writing samples
because people can and do adopt different styles in their writing
depending on circumstance and whimsy. As an exercise, read
something from James Mickens, and try to imitate his style for
some other technical topic. It's actually not that hard, at least
to get within throwing distance, refinement is always possible.
He probably doesn't write family letters or most emails or
technical documentation that way though. Once you have a broader
sample from an author across different topics and genres, and
even sampling on short-form writing or interviews, you can be on
better footing for guessing what their personality is like
without having to go through the effort of getting to know them
as an individual (which is otherwise the usual constraint) but
you still risk being quite over-confidently wrong.
Certainly you're right that aspects of writing including style
come to be expected over time by an audience, and if what were
supposedly fixed things suddenly change it's usually not
pleasant. Though to a fresh reader, the new version might be far
preferable. Some authors could use an editor, some authors could
tell their editor to back off more.
In the similar space of personalities we're discussing, I'd also
bring up patio11, whose writing I've sampled for a long time here
and elsewhere (I still think of him as the bingo card guy). I've
mostly enjoyed it but I would not mind at all if his
question-anticipating style and
stating-things-precisely-but-also-precisely-vaguely-so-as-not-to-
create-any-chance-at-liabilities style went away. The content
overcomes the style and matters more, which I'd like to think is
usual for me and how I evaluate things anyway.
The misanthrope comment is pretty funny. I'd disagree, especially
considering how gwern has handled crazy person emails, but also
because I'm somewhat misanthropic myself and figure gwern is
probably less so, but who knows, it's a pretty bold thing to
claim of someone else you don't know personally one way or
another. I think what might be there for people to pick up on is
a sense of superiority but in the form of distance, illustrated
by this anonymous quote: "If I am superior to others, if I am
above others, then I do not need others. When I say that I am
above others, it does not mean that I feel better than them, it
means that I am at a distance from them, a safe distance." (But
again perhaps not, I just like that quote and is how I've felt of
myself at times, more when I was younger.)
The opposite of orthogonal is non-orthogonal, the components are
not completely independent, but it's left unstated how dependent
they then are. (You could also say the inner product is non-zero
if talking about vectors. There are many numbers that are
non-zero.) I'd agree that there is something of an artist in an
artist's works, but it's again risky (if you care about not being
wrong too much anyway, or whatever consequences can come from
being wrong) to speculate what exactly that something is,
especially if all you have is the work. People all too often read
way more into things than what is actually there. The author
themself is a more reliable source for what parts of themselves
are in something. (I'm reminded of Tolkien's hatred of allegory
that he talks about in the preface. His letters go into further
detail about what of the artist is or is not in art,
intentionally or unintentionally. You could say the art itself
talks about it too -- e.g. the Ring by nature of its maker is not
like other mere tools which can be used for either good or evil.)
For your first footnote, then, I'm in the camp of separation, and
it's perfectly fine to talk of one without talk of the other, and
for little of an artist's being to leak through. It's also
healthier, at least I think it's unhealthy how many people seem
to work themselves into a frenzy about something about the artist
that prevents them from looking at the art more on its own. And
again, if you're not using outside sources, what you can infer
about someone purely from the art, purely from the fact that they
made something rather than nothing, and this particular something
rather than something else, is more limited than what some people
imagine. "The Ass Goblins of Auschwitz" is a work of
bizarro-fiction, I think there are plenty of people who would
wish the author were killed just for admitting to having such
thoughts by fact of putting them to paper. I don't actually know
anything about the author, if there was any blurb about him in
the book I've forgotten it over the actual book, but in any case
I'd bet he's a fine guy in day to day life and not deserving of
any trouble. (I am rather certain it's a he, though I don't
recall his name.)
I also think it's fine to talk of the art and artist together,
but it's not necessary, and usually less interesting, fruitful,
or certain. But a sometimes-fun exercise in some fiction analysis
can be: find the author's self-insert character. (That
presupposes there is one, there sometimes isn't.) How sure are
you that you've got it right? You should probably consult some
information about the author themselves outside the art itself.
And even then, is it a "complete insert", or a partial one, or
one made of past regrets or future ideals or alternative paths,
but not present bits?
While we're tossing light criticism about other people around in
public, or as I'd put it just sharing opinions and viewpoints
(this is not structured enough to be criticism), what comes to
mind first for the three writers brought up is this: Maciej is
funny even when he's wrong, pg is just insufferable when wrong,
gwern is rarely wrong. I liked pg's older writing more, at some
point he fell off and neither his tweets that occasionally
surface to me nor his newer essays that I've bothered to read
(last one I believe was "Good Writing") have left much of an
impact or held my interest content-wise or style-wise. I haven't
kept up with Maciej in tweet or other form since 2017 or so
because I thought his content and style were repetitive and
became boring (and wrong about things in ways that didn't invite
counter argument or correction). My exposure to gwern's writing
was IRC and LW comments from many years back, I've only read a
fraction of his longer form work on his site but occasionally
I'll read new things he puts out because he's still occasionally
writing about new and interesting things. His style has never put
me off, but sure, it's not routinely funny like I remember
Maciej, and it lacks some sharpness and brevity that old-pg had.
I still think it has personality, and a particular gwern-like
personality even when it's in "classic style" mode that is shared
by many other writers, but that might just be familiarity
especially with his shorter form words.
And I still find gwern funny at times. This bit of fiction, for
instance, has some amusing bits: [1] I wonder, does it satisfy
your query of something as intriguing as "Empires Without Farms:
The Case of Venice"? There are several ways that link can "make
me care", though the web page layout can make it awkward. Is it
the "clippy" in the URL, the official title "It Looks Like
Youâre Trying To Take Over The World", the one-sentence summary
that just tells you it's a fictional short story about something,
the two-sentence summary below that which says the same with a
tiny bit more detail, the picture of Clippy, or the first lines
of the actual text: "In A.D. 20XX. Work was beginning. âHow are
you gentlemen !!â⦠(Work. Work never changes; work is always
hell.)"? Those first lines are distinctive video game references
that even if one hasn't played the games, if one has been on the
internet enough during a particular time then they'll likely ring
a bell. The recognition of such signals is going to either act
like crack ("One of us!") and draw the reader further in, or act
as a repellent (quirk chungus) and bring forth a groan if not
abandonment; I've been both kinds of reader for the same
references. Meanwhile others won't get the references at all,
it's just weird. Whether including such references indicates
something meaningful about the author's personality directly,
rather than just them being aware of the shibboleths and making
use of them to attract and entertain a certain audience, is hard
to say. Fans often end up with "don't meet your heroes" kinds of
feelings when they over-empathized with their inferred
construction of someone and thought they were part of the tribe
rather than just making use of the tribe's signals.
(HTM) [1]: https://gwern.net/fiction/clippy
tolerance wrote 10 hours 7 min ago:
I appreciate your take on misanthropy. I returned to the topic
in another comment in a way I think you may find apt: < [1] >.
Additionally I appreciate the extent to which our perceptions
on literature differ. This was an enlightening exchange.
In an attempt to retain decorum between us I will withhold
speculation on the character of (Mr?) Cameron Pierce whose work
you made mention of.
But it's tough to resist. And boy, am I confident about it.
Thanks also for the pointer to James Mickens. And if I may ask,
do you have a reference for where I may find Tolkien's remarks
on the relation between the artist and his art?
I'm going to make a gross fusion out of two points you made
that I enjoy in conjunction:
> And again, if you're not using outside sources, what you can
infer about someone purely from the art, purely from the fact
that they made something rather than nothing, and this
particular something rather than something else, is more
limited than what some people imagine. [...]
Those first lines are distinctive video game references that
even if one hasn't played the games, if one has been on the
internet enough during a particular time then they'll likely
ring a bell. The recognition of such signals is going to either
act like crack ("One of us!") and draw the reader further in,
or act as a repellent (quirk chungus) and bring forth a groan
if not abandonment; I've been both kinds of reader for the same
references. Meanwhile others won't get the references at all,
it's just weird. Whether including such references indicates
something meaningful about the author's personality directly,
rather than just them being aware of the shibboleths and making
use of them to attract and entertain a certain audience, is
hard to say. Fans often end up with "don't meet your heroes"
kinds of feelings when they over-empathized with their inferred
construction of someone and thought they were part of the tribe
rather than just making use of the tribe's signals.
I think how we experience the phenomenon you describe in the
second paragraph that I've appended aboveâthe final one in
your full responseâis where we differ.
I can't help but use references like the ones you described
above as data points to infer the personality of the author.
It's an innate mental process that occurs concurrent to
whatever else I think about while reading their work. And the
world is filled with such data points even beyond ones that the
author intentionally invites.
I'm probably more likely to expect that these references (that
I consider to be outside sources; this may be irresponsible to
you) are indicative of the nature of the author either directly
or indirectlyâthat there is at least some genuine influence
behind the reference of certain concepts, beliefs and
shibbolethsâbecause I don't read fiction the same way that I
read non-fiction. Which is to say that I don't actually read
fiction at all.
I do appreciate how certain fiction serves as literary
representations of the ideas that the author has about the
world (whether they're his own or those of other's that he
wants to bring attention to) that they otherwise wouldn't
express through non-fiction. So I do mine the work of some
fiction authors for that kind of insight and nothing more;
because my objective is to comprehend the diverse ways that
people perceive life and the lives of others. Because of this I
probably tend to interpret the effect of a piece of literature
more seriously than others; in search of more intimate and
perhaps more disquieting evaluations.
As you mentioned, sometimes the author is just trying to
attract an audience. So thatâs not to say that all references
are worthy of as strong of a consideration that Iâm
describing. Maybe the fun part of this kind of work is vetting
for authenticityâfor better or worseâall things considered.
(HTM) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46760901
Jach wrote 8 hours 34 min ago:
It's good of you to beware immature judgment lest you so be
judged.
I didn't have a particular letter in mind but the topic comes
up at various places in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien,
especially in his remarks about sub-creation. I decided to
ctrl-f my digital copy and I'll point you to Letter 213 for a
direct remark. It's 3 paragraphs, here's the first:
> I do not like giving 'facts' about myself other than 'dry'
ones (which anyway are quite as relevant to my books as any
other more Juicy details). Not simply for personal reasons;
but also because I object to the contemporary trend in
criticism, with its excessive interest in the details of the
lives of authors and artists. They only distract attention
from an author's works (if the works are in fact worthy of
attention), and end, as one now often sees, in becoming the
main interest. But only one's guardian Angel, or indeed God
Himself, could unravel the real relationship between personal
facts and an author's works. Not the author himself (though
he knows more than any investigator), and certainly not
so-called 'psychologists'.
I'm in agreement with Tolkien here.
I wonder if you've ever read A Modest Proposal? If not: [1]
But if so I still wonder if you can put yourself in the frame
of mind of not having read it and not knowing anything about
it, and thus recreating an approximation for how you would
read such a piece for the first time. What do you make of it?
What do you make of Dr. Jonathan Swift? Do you have enough
historical knowledge to put yourself in 1729 and interpret it
as a person from that era, instead of our modern cynical and
irony-poisoned one?
(HTM) [1]: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.h...
tolerance wrote 7 hours 20 min ago:
> It's good of you to beware immature judgment lest you so
be judged.
A dear reminder best expressed by the second Caliph of the
Islamic state Umar ibn al-Khattab رض٠اÙÙ٠عÙÙ:
âBring yourself to account before you are taken to
account.â
I think Iâve come across both that quote of Tolkienâs
before and Iâm also vaguely familiar with A Modest
Proposal, to the degree that after reading the subtitle I
was reminded that itâs satire. Iâm not sure how this
will affect my reading of it but I intend to assign myself
both Letter 213 of Tolkienâs letters and the whole of A
Modest Proposal with the questions you presented in
relation to it as homework! Thanks.
Edit: I also just found your blog and am subscribed to your
RSS feed. âHard Laborâ is a nice read. Itâs hard to
come across this level of introspection that doesnât go
out of its way to appeal to an audience. Well Iâm reading
your stuff now. And I am judging you too! (Half joke).
eichin wrote 14 hours 52 min ago:
Yeah, but even that isn't going to make me care about why Gwern is
obsessing over Venice. Part of that is that I follow Overly
Sarcastic Productions on youtube and "Blue" did a vastly better job
of expressing/performing "I'm excited about Venice, and in a couple
of minutes you will be too!" - an advantage of the medium and of
their chosen style, for reaching someone like me who isn't all that
compelled by European history.
(Yes, I get that it was an example to make a point about a writing
style; one of the risks of really concrete examples is bouncing off
of the example itself :-)
wetpaws wrote 16 hours 37 min ago:
Gwern has hands down one of the worst blogs, readability wise, ever
created on the internets. His writing style can be hit or miss too.
orthoxerox wrote 5 hours 30 min ago:
I agree, but I think I know why I personally have this opinion. I
don't like reading hypermedia, and Gwern is all about hypermedia.
Hypermedia is fine when you're reading reference material, like
Wikipedia. We've all done [1] , but at some point you just learn to
tune out the hyperlinks.
When reading an article written by a single human, I want it to
have a well-defined linear structure. I don't even like footnotes
or pull-out quotes. Gwern likes to put a "blind" hyperlink or two
in literally every sentence. Here's what an "orthoxerox-optimized
Gwern article" would look like:
- blind links to literal Wikipedia: gone, I can search for more
information myself
- blind links to external websites: please just pull the relevant
information into the body of the article or, if that's impossible,
spend a sentence on why you want me to click it
- blind links to other pages on the website: again, if it's some
relevant information, please just pull it into the body of the
article; if it's self-promotion, I can live with links like these
if they are the only blind ones left, but the "Similar links" box
under the article is already there
(HTM) [1]: https://xkcd.com/214/
bigDinosaur wrote 7 hours 8 min ago:
Gwern does actual research into usability, and that's the reason
there aren't any ads on Gwern.net (which alone makes it far from
the worst for readability, I mean have you used the internet
without an ad blocker on the median blog??).
Anyway, it's readable for me, and I quite enjoy it, so perhaps you
just aren't the target audience. That doesn't matter at all, you
don't need to read Gwern at all.
jefftk wrote 12 hours 6 min ago:
There are definitely less readable blogs, even restricting to ones
that aren't intentionally hard to read. For example: [1]
(Disclosure: written by my kid, who was just shy of 7yo then)
Personally, I like Gwern's style and aesthetic a lot, and don't
have trouble reading his stuff.
(HTM) [1]: https://www.lilywise.com/amusement
1dom wrote 16 hours 3 min ago:
I think that's a little extreme to say it's one of the worst. It's
definitely a different style to a lot of blogs, but I like how much
information is spread across the site. It's satisfying to explore
on a desktop.
oncallthrow wrote 17 hours 5 min ago:
This didnât make me care
jfengel wrote 16 hours 52 min ago:
Agreed, because it's not very actionable advice. At best it provides
some examples of what not to do.
The example leads to one classic bit of writing advice: tell only the
very most important things and omit everything else. Start the story
as late as you can and end it as early as possible. This applies to
nonfiction just as much as to fiction.
firefoxd wrote 17 hours 8 min ago:
I wrote my story and titled it, "My experience at work with an
automated HR system". I sent it to a few friends, only a couple of them
read it.
A week later, I renamed it to "The Machine Fired Me". That seemed to
capture it better. The goal wasn't to make it click bait, but it was to
put the spoiler, and punch line right up front. It blew up!
I had just read Life of Pi, and one thing I like about that book is
that you know the punch line before you even pick up a copy. A boy is
stuck with a bengal tiger in a boat. Now that the punch line is out of
the way, the story has time to unfold and be interesting in its own
merit. That's what I was trying to recreate with my own story.
chasemp wrote 9 hours 20 min ago:
Great example, thanks for sharing.
NathanaelRea wrote 12 hours 17 min ago:
Reminds me of Veritasium's recent videos, really driving that initial
hook and maintaining the viewer's attention. He had an explanation
video about it which explained how people who would be interested in
something like "the Lorenz equation" probably don't know what it's
called, so it might be more accurate to phrase it in terms that
someone would search for or initially peak their interest.
And I think it fits neatly with making people care first. I want to
learn more about the machine that fired you, that's more the start of
a narrative arc. It's almost like I have more trust that you will
make it interesting, since you put a little more work up front.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 13 hours 39 min ago:
That's the LinkedIn "broetry" formula.
LI only shows a sentence as a teaser, and good "broets" have learned
to write a good teaser line.
nicbou wrote 6 hours 10 min ago:
This is such a perfect term for it. Thank you for starting my day
with a chuckle. I feel validated.
More about this weird phenomenon:
(HTM) [1]: https://fenwick.media/rewild/magazine/dead-broets-society-...
stephenbez wrote 16 hours 4 min ago:
"The Machine Fired Me" is one good hook. I found the original post
and its good:
(HTM) [1]: https://idiallo.com/blog/when-a-machine-fired-me
arjie wrote 17 hours 12 min ago:
This insight is what caused the rise of the clickbait headline and its
predecessors in eras past. You need a hook or there's no point reading
the tale.
svilen_dobrev wrote 17 hours 12 min ago:
aaand, how to apply this technique to a CV?
prepending a one-liner-about-some-feat that might interest that
particular company, before the usual cv afterthat?
hmm. made me think..
zkmon wrote 17 hours 15 min ago:
> When writing, first, make the reader care, one way or another.
Because if I am not hooked by the first screen, I will probably not
keep readingâno matter how good the rest of it is!
Keeping the reader glued to the screen is not the primary goal of
writing. This artificial goal pollutes the connection between writer
and reader. It makes them buyer and seller and rewards sales tactics.
You don't write for the reader. You write for yourself first. Readers
sometimes, just happen to appreciate it about as much you do.
GeoAtreides wrote 14 hours 59 min ago:
> Keeping the reader glued to the screen is not the primary goal of
writing [...] You don't write for the reader.
This is contrary to all writing advice I have read, from Robert Olen
Butler to John Gardner. Sure, the natural geniuses might write from
themselves or their friends (like Kafka) and because they're geniuses
the writing is good, but most people aren't geniuses, so they need to
keep the reader and its needs firmly (VERY firmly) in their minds.
Speaking of John Gardner, here is a quote about writing that
perfectly encapsulates what the job of writer is:
"A true work of fiction does all of the following things, and does
them elegantly, efficiently: it creates a vivid and continuous dream
in the readerâs mind; it is implicitly philosophical; it fulfills
or at least deals with all of the expectations it sets up; and it
strikes us, in the end, not simply as a thing done but as a shining
performance."
..."Make me care" is part of the "expectations it sets up". "Make me
care" begins with the first word of the first chapter, continues with
the first paragraph and the first page and, through the first scene,
it eases the reader into the "vivid and continuous dream" from which
the author should never jolt awake the reader.
derektank wrote 16 hours 57 min ago:
The primary goal of writing is communication. If you are trying to
convey information, you need someone to actually sit down and read
it. Most of the time, this isnât a problem, youâre writing for
someone you have a pre-existing relationship with and they want to
read what you have to say, whether that be a friend, a coworker, or
your future self.
Problems arise when you move from one:one, to one:many communication.
If you are trying to pass knowledge on to people you have no prior
relationship with, you do need to attract their attention in a sea of
options. If you actually have something important to say that other
people need to hear, it does nobody any good for you to go unnoticed.
In those circumstances, I donât see anything wrong with taking
Gwernâs advice.
BeetleB wrote 17 hours 2 min ago:
> Keeping the reader glued to the screen is not the primary goal of
writing.
This is common advice in English classes and it predates the World
Wide Web (and likely the Internet).
Hook them in the first few sentences or lose them.
And yes, of course, it does depend on who the intended audience is.
You wouldn't do it in The New Yorker.
> You don't write for the reader. You write for yourself first.
Readers sometimes, just happen to appreciate it about as much you do.
Depends very much on the medium. It's definitely not true that most
professional writing is written for the author's sake. It is for an
audience. Read books on writing and you'll often find the advice to
cut out things if they won't interest the reader - no matter how
valuable it is to you.
I myself struggle with this. Some years ago, I took a trip to my
childhood home in another country after being separated for decades.
Almost none of my friends from the time have been there in decades
either. I made notes during the trip, and when I got back I started
writing what I saw, and shared it with my friends who grew up with
me. How various neighborhoods have changed. Anecdotes from my
childhood tied to those places. And a lot more.
I got 30% done, and then decided to hold off sharing till I'd written
the whole thing. I now have a first draft. It's the size of a proper
book. It contains a lot of stuff that is of value to me, but likely
not to most of the (small) audience. I know if I share it with them,
chances are high no one will read it.
On the one hand, the stuff I wrote is highly valuable to me - it's
become an unintentional memoir. But on the other hand, I do want to
share quite a bit with my friends, and I know they'll value it if
they actually read it.
I'll either have to cut a lot out, or write two versions
(impractical).
The point being that even when you have a very limited audience, it
is important to care about them and sacrifice your needs to an
extent.
zkmon wrote 6 hours 12 min ago:
Never cut out stuff that you felt important to include. Just forget
the reader. The content you write should reflect you, not the
reader. It's your expression. Don't make it a sales pitch, or a
reflection of average reader's taste.
I get scared when an author is talking to me, the reader. I stop
reading when they pretend to be aware of my context. Things like
"So you are reading this book because you want to learn about AI"
sounds very cheap.
Also I hate when the actors on TV suddenly start talking to the
viewer about what they did and why did etc. Disgusting.
Audience want to observe the performers, not converse with them.
Your best performance comes out when you are not much aware of the
audience. Like a child playing, ignoring people around.
ofalkaed wrote 17 hours 6 min ago:
I agree with your first assertion but not so much on the rest. There
is more than one reason to write and for many it is about
communication, they have something they want to express and you would
be wise to consider your reader if that is your goal.
Hooking the reader with the opening page is swinging to the other
fence of having a terrible opening page that no one will get through,
generally not good to swing to the fences. I think the writer should
be honest and upfront with the reader, the opening pages should be
representative of what is to come, they should represent the whole
and not just the beginning.
pcrh wrote 17 hours 17 min ago:
The hook was great, but article was mediocre. I glazed over at the
mention of LLMs in the second paragraph, skimming the article through
to the end didn't improve things.
If your readers now care, don't disappoint them...
tines wrote 17 hours 25 min ago:
I have often thought that all good fiction is mystery. This is
obviously an overstatement, but I think itâs not too far off. Humans
are mystery solvers. If I donât have a compelling mystery to
solveâsomething like the âwhatâs going on beneath the surface in
this town?â that David Lynch does so wellâwhen Iâm reading your
book or watching your tv show or playing your game, Iâm usually out
unless I have a strong prior interest (which simply means that I
brought my own mystery).
Frotag wrote 16 hours 15 min ago:
I'm usually the opposite. Mystery feels like the characters, the
narrator, etc are all being intentionally obscure, for no reason
other than to pad page count and incite drama.
I prefer stories that are either about evoking feelings (adventure,
romance, slice of life) or about exploring ideas / what-ifs (scifi,
fantasy). And ideally stories at the extremes of this spectrum. Maybe
I've read too many but ones in the middle tend to be too cliched to
hook me.
tines wrote 9 hours 47 min ago:
It could definitely be my systems-oriented writing. May I ask what
your profession is? Iâm a software engineer.
treelover wrote 17 hours 29 min ago:
"When writing, your first job is this:
First, make me care."
It really depends on who the audience is...
bravura wrote 17 hours 23 min ago:
Understanding your audience is your first job as a writer or
communicator.
Speaking to them and making them care is job two.
wtetzner wrote 10 hours 51 min ago:
Ideally you wouldn't need to make them care. Just give them enough
information up front for them to determine if they care.
isoprophlex wrote 17 hours 29 min ago:
This article succeeded spectacularly in making me want to know all
there is to know about medieval Venice, that's for sure.
skybrian wrote 17 hours 1 min ago:
It's really too bad it's not a quote from an actual book.
treetalker wrote 17 hours 34 min ago:
Zeroth, proofread.
swiftcoder wrote 17 hours 19 min ago:
Eh, if your hook is interesting and your writing is generally solid,
I'm not about to begrudge a few typos
jfengel wrote 16 hours 50 min ago:
True, but any re-reading will let you pick up a lot of the typos.
If you write it once and ship it unedited, then you weren't
interested, and the reader likely won't be either. Typos clue the
reader into that early.
bondarchuk wrote 17 hours 34 min ago:
I think "Just⦠start with the interesting part first" is quite
different, and actually much better advice than "make me care". I'm
more than done with stupid hooks and attention grabbing techniques,
just plainly and honestly state at the outset what the point is of what
will follow.
NegativeK wrote 13 hours 45 min ago:
I now try to follow something like bottom line up front (BLUF) when
I'm trying to quickly communicate something and respect someone's
time: the most important, actionable detail first with details
expanding as you read more.
I first heard that it has a standard in an email from someone
ex-military; they started the email with "BLUF: blah blah blah".
Turns out the military had (has?) it as a standard for emails. Go
figure.
Before then, I remember someone asking Adam Ragusea (Youtube cooking
channel) why he gives away the point of the video at the very
beginning. Ragusea explained that he was previously a journalism
professor, and he refused to bury the lede.
I don't watch cooking content anymore, but I've remained impressed
that he was able to have a Youtube career while avoiding that
manipulate-the-audience behavior to drive stats.
bondarchuk wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
So basically TL;DR :)
marginalia_nu wrote 16 hours 33 min ago:
Yeah, there are two basic schools.
1. Broadcast what the article is about to let the interested readers
find it easier
2. Trick people into reading as much of the article as possible
through any means
The first makes sense if you want readers. The second makes sense if
you're counting page impressions.
sothatsit wrote 11 hours 11 min ago:
This is fairly uncharitable. The goal is not to trick people into
reading, it is to motivate them as to why they should read. It is
more about highlighting the most interesting part of your article
to tell people why they should spend the time. You still have to
deliver on your promises.
I feel like Gwernâs example is quite illustrative of this point.
Just framing the content differently makes you more motivated to
jump into it, even if youâre reading about the same content as
before.
bondarchuk wrote 2 hours 55 min ago:
I don't know. It's almost universally assumed to be true that
"making someone want to read on" is inherently good but IMO it's
not. Why is it good to be "more motivated to jump into it"? If a
plain description and some context does not motivate you, it
would be better to spend your time elsewhere.
skybrian wrote 17 hours 35 min ago:
Suppose you fed this article into an LLM, along with whatever other
documents you had, and asked it to come up with some good candidates
for opening sentences? And picked one, and let it take it from there?
I assume you'd get a mess, but it might be an interesting mess.
makeitrain wrote 17 hours 37 min ago:
I canât click on any links on pages (the header works).
Using brave on iPhone.
Firefox and Safari worksâ¦
OtherShrezzing wrote 17 hours 40 min ago:
This was quite a good article. It could have been excellent if it
answered its own hook somewhere the piece though.
I came away not having a resolution to the hook - violating the
articles second principle.
simonw wrote 17 hours 41 min ago:
This is something I find fascinating about TikTok: on that platform you
literally get a few seconds to catch the attention of your audience
before they skip to the next video.
You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever because
people will get bored of it - including if that hook is heavily used by
other accounts.
This makes TikTok a fascinating brute-force attack on human psychology,
with literally millions of people all trying to find the right hooks to
catch attention and constantly evolving and iterating on them as the
previous hooks stop being effective.
wodow wrote 20 min ago:
> You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever...
I would be interested in a study on how long popular accounts do use
their one hook -- or set of hooks, or rotate them...
duxup wrote 50 min ago:
> You can't just find one hook that works
Is that true?
psychoslave wrote 3 hours 40 min ago:
I wonder what proportion of people find things like TikTok, YouTube
shorts, and even Twitter for the text counterpart, absolutely
repulsive. It's not even disdain as in "I'm too good for this", more
like some people can't stand the view of a spider I guess.
And other things like HN can definitely hook my mind.
Cthulhu_ wrote 4 hours 8 min ago:
This is leaking to loads of other media too - movie trailers have
started with some quick action shots, then BIG text saying "trailer
starts now". Like a trailer to a trailer. Which is released after a
teaser for a trailer. They even have recurring sound effects (vine
boom sounds, but movie trailer edition where every action event
(explosion, punch, scene change) is accentuated with a distinct drum
boom sound effect, often in time with the dramatized remix of
recognisable music). I hate it lol.
As for tiktok / other short video clip format content, one trend I've
seen is to start the video with the conclusion (e.g. someone falling
over), then starting with the buildup. Since these videos are played
on loop anyway, they trick the viewer into thinking they missed the
buildup.
sevenseacat wrote 2 hours 8 min ago:
How I hate the trend of videos like YouTube shorts to almost show
the punchline of the video at the start before the full video.
Nextgrid wrote 1 hour 14 min ago:
It's not limited to Shorts, even normal longform videos have had
this crap for years now. I hate it too - fortunately SponsorBlock
can take care of this, they have optional categories you can
enable beyond just sponsors, including the "hook".
I was looking into making an automatic detector for this kind of
thing (basically detect if anything in the first ~30 seconds
repeats itself later in the video, and if so mark it) but my DSP
skills aren't up to the task (and turns out LLMs are useless for
these kinds of novel tasks).
jonnybgood wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
> You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever
because people will get bored of it
Isn't that the most followed user on TikTok Khaby Lame (his facial
expression)? Looks like he just sold his company for $900M.
Cthulhu_ wrote 4 hours 5 min ago:
Damn, I'm in the wrong industry.
I think it's different for tiktok (as a non-tiktok user so take
this with a huge grain of salt lmao), people don't watch one
creator's videos one after the other, they get put in the big soup
of clips that people scroll through for sometimes hours a day. And
a lot of that is people sticking to one formula, because for many,
the predictability is comforting / puts them in the tiktok brain
off frame of mind.
Which isn't a new phenomenon - lots of people have "comfort shows"
on e.g. Netflix, often the studio series with long seasons like
sitcoms. They're comfortable because they often maintain a similar
energy or formula over their run time, and missing parts of it
(like current-day episodic films) isn't a big issue.
galkk wrote 6 hours 2 min ago:
> You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever
Hmm. I feel exact opposite. Most of successful channels that i see
are using exact same formula/structure/often even style time and time
again.
PeterStuer wrote 8 hours 25 min ago:
"You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever"
Biology tends to disagree.
amelius wrote 15 hours 12 min ago:
Except the hooks only attach to the lizard brain while the rational
brain just sits there with a palm in its face.
nsbk wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
There is no lizard brain. The "triune brain" theory has been
debunked by modern neuroscience for years.
klustregrif wrote 15 hours 30 min ago:
> You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever
That seems to be exactly what succesfull acounts are doing. They go a
year or two creating content in a theme and then find that one hook
that makes people stay a second to see what heir content is and then
their entire personality and content becomes that one hook repeated
until naseum and no matter what they do to try to escape it it's
impossible since they don't control their content exposure newcommers
will aways be flooded in a repeat storm of that same hook, and people
who get tired will move on no matter what. So the only reliable way
of trying to "pivot" to anything else is to create a new account, but
that's going to get you back at the start with no guarentee that
you'll have another hit in the next 2 years, so they just accept
their fate as "the cucumber guy" or "the funny outfit girl" and then
ride that as far towards the sunset as possible.
alexdobrenko wrote 1 hour 13 min ago:
yes except all of this stuff...fundementally sucks, right? its why
influencers generally don't become actors. there's very little
depth to it. Versus for example Hank and John Green who sure, they
have good hooks, but they also have depth?
idk can't tell if this is me hoping or coping
epiccoleman wrote 7 hours 37 min ago:
This definitely seems true to me, from my limited short content
usage. I try to avoid getting sucked into the feed (Youtube Shorts
is the one I have used), but if I do find myself scrolling through
the morass of clips from Shark Tank or Family Guy [1], the one guy
I'll almost always stop for is FunkFPV, who just does a duet on
clips of stupid "hacks" and incidences of dumb stuff happening in
factory / warehouse / construction settings.
He's just a blue-collar type guy who is mildly funny when
critiquing the stupidity of, say, a guy walking up a badly placed
ladder with a mini split condenser on his shoulder - but it's a
niche that for whatever reason I enjoy, and I don't think I'd
remember his handle if it wasn't for his very specific niche.
Interestingly enough [2] I've noticed a number of other creators
seem to have sprung up in this niche and will occasionally find a
video of some other blue-collar-lookin-dude doing the same schtick.
I doubt FunkFPV is the first (in fact he sort of reminds me of an
"AvE-lite") to tap this weird market, but he's my touchpoint, at
least.
[1]: Yes, it is embarrassing that the algorithm has determined that
these are likely to garner my attention
[2]: it's actually not really interesting because almost nothing on
the topic of short-form video is actually interesting by any
reasonable definition of that word, so this is just a turn of
phrase
TeMPOraL wrote 8 hours 5 min ago:
Does TikTok even have persistent personalities of this type? I
thought a big part of the service was its recommendation algorithm
that will keep recommending you other new stuff, not just reruns of
the same influencers.
Aryezz wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
It's both. Since most videos are a couple minutes long at most,
and a TikTok doomscrolling session can last for hours, the
algorithm can show you all the new videos you haven't seen of
accounts you seem to enjoy (or are following), and a ton of new
stuff as well.
rrvsh wrote 14 hours 38 min ago:
Yeah, I instantly disagreed with that point in the comment you
replied to - TikTok's algorithm seems to reward sticking to your
niche.
ctoth wrote 16 hours 22 min ago:
Attention is all you need, after all.
On its own, this is interesting. But when you consider that people
actually need attention for things like their jobs, the road, their
children, &c... it starts to sort of look a bit like a superweapon.
Cthulhu_ wrote 4 hours 2 min ago:
And when propaganda is injected into it - subtly, through many
channels and methods - it becomes worse. I'm confident that the
western world's rightward shift is down to targeted social media
campaigns. It doesn't help that said social media stopped checking
for fake news and bent the knees to said rightward shift, because
money.
kmoser wrote 16 hours 28 min ago:
> This is something I find fascinating about TikTok: on that platform
you literally get a few seconds to catch the attention of your
audience before they skip to the next video.
Before TikTok, the YouTube "hook" was to choose the right image
thumbnail that would entice people to click on your video. There was
a time when YouTube didn't let you select a thumbnail; they would
automatically select an image from a certain time in the video, so
producers adapted by filming their videos so the most visually
engaging moment came at that time.
rossant wrote 9 hours 43 min ago:
Fifteen years ago, I ran a YouTube channel with hundreds of obscure
French videos about pediatrics and parenting. One of them suddenly
attracted massive attention worldwide, especially from Pakistan and
Indonesia. According to the stats, 99% of the viewers were male.
Millions and millions of views. For months, it sat in the top five
French videos on YouTube. Ad revenue went through the roof, like
three figures per day, for months, from that single video. None of
the others on the channel saw anything remotely similar. It was
baffling.
Then I understood why. The automatic thumbnail generator had picked
a frame from the exact middle of the two-minute video. It showed a
close-up of a newborn heel prick test: a nurse firmly holding the
babyâs heel and pricking it to collect a drop of blood for
routine postnatal genetic screening. The thumbnail frame looked
like a skin-colored cylinder grasped by a womanâs hand.
Thankfully, the flood of comments, expressing disgust and horror at
a medical procedure on a newborn after viewers had expected
something entirely different, did not prevent the algorithm from
enthusiastically recommending that thumbnail to a significant
fraction of humanity.
sizzle wrote 6 hours 54 min ago:
Thatâs really actually hilarious and would probably get your
account flagged by AI for showing obscenity or something
nowadays.
ericmcer wrote 16 hours 48 min ago:
There almost is no hook, the hook is that the time investment for
each video is so small your brain doesn't even need to think about
whether it should watch or not.
Cthulhu_ wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
And the other factor is I think the "rat pulling a lever" thing.
A rat is in a lab, pulls a lever, treat comes out, nom. Pulls
again, treat comes out, nom. Pulls again... no treat. Pulls again,
treat comes out, nom. This goes on, 10 pulls with no treat, but
sometimes something comes out so the rat keeps going. You get the
idea.
This is a lot of social media. You end up scrolling through a lot
of shit, adverts and subtle propaganda, passively absorbing it
until you get rewarded with something you genuinely enjoy and get
the good hormones from.
andai wrote 16 hours 51 min ago:
>TikTok [is] a fascinating brute-force attack on human psychology
Security researcher once told me that he sees social media as a
distributed hacking attempt on the human mind.
I think it's a genetic algorithm. You try random stuff and when
something works you clone and mutate and crossbreed it.
noduerme wrote 1 hour 19 min ago:
Attention-seeking is indeed the original genetic algorithm.
tstrimple wrote 15 hours 34 min ago:
Isn't this pretty much the definition of a meme? I mean before meme
just became synonymous with funny cat videos. Like the actual
meaning of the word.
mr_toad wrote 3 hours 52 min ago:
Dawkins original definition was an idea that replicated
unchanged, in an analogy to a gene, which is essentially a unit
of DNA small enough to replicate unchanged.
rcxdude wrote 3 hours 34 min ago:
mostly unchanged (or rather, unchanged most of the time).
Mutations still happen and are necessary for evolution.
komali2 wrote 14 hours 36 min ago:
Snow Crash explored this much more literally, supposing that
there may be memes so powerful they can function basically as
magic spells that reprogram people's brains.
Root_Denied wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
The SCP Foundation pages[0] have something similar, a danger
classification for "Memetic Hazards" which are basically
informational viruses that affect memory, cognition, and
perception.
[0] -
(HTM) [1]: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/understanding-memetics
TeMPOraL wrote 7 hours 54 min ago:
My favorite example is actually one that I believe could be
true[0]: self-reinforcing cycles of human conflict, that
resemble the life cycle of a parasite. From an old (2014)
SlateStarCodex essay[1]. Some of it is going to be
controversial read today[2], so I'll just give you the relevant
"money quote" from the end:
What would it mean for a meme to have a life cycle as
complicated as toxoplasma?
Consider the war on terror. They say that every time the United
States bombs Pakistan or Afghanistan or somewhere, all weâre
doing is radicalizing the young people there and making more
terrorists. Those terrorists then go on to kill Americans,
which makes Americans get very angry and call for more bombing
of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Taken as a meme, itâs a single parasite with two hosts and
two forms. In an Afghan host, it appears in a form called
âjihadâ, and hijacks its host into killing himself in order
to spread it to its second, American host. In the American host
it morphs in a form called âthe war on terrorâ, and it
hijacks the Americans into giving their own lives (and tax
dollars) to spread it back to its Afghan host in the form of
bombs.
From the human point of view, jihad and the War on Terror are
opposing forces. From the memetic point of view, theyâre as
complementary as caterpillars and butterflies. Instead of
judging, we just note that somehow we accidentally created a
replicator, and replicators are going to replicate until
something makes them stop.
--
[0] - In whatever sense models are "true", i.e. a nice way to
describe reality, that's succinct and has good predictive
power, or something. [1] - [1] [2] - Which is not the same
thing as saying it turned out wrong.
(HTM) [1]: https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/The-Toxoplasma-...
adolph wrote 17 min ago:
Vervaeke makes a claim of parasitism explicit in the Meaning
Crisis series.
We call this Parasitic Processing because it's like a
parasite in that it
takes up life within you, and it takes life away from you!
It causes you to
lose your agency. It causes you to suffer. And here's
what's important. This
capacity for your cognitive brain to be self organizing,
heuristic using,
complexify, to create complex systems and functions with
emergent abilities,
has a downside to it.
This is a complex, self-organising, adaptive system! If you
try and intervene
here the rest of the system reorganizes itself around your
attempted
intervention. It can adapt and preserve itself as you tried
to destroy it.
Why? Because it's making use of the very machinery by which
You adapt, and
make use of the things that are trying to destroy You!
(HTM) [1]: https://www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-13-awakening-from-th...
iterateoften wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
Also the most successful parasites have defense mechanisms to
protect it. The process of radicalization and cultural
heritage in general is a type of defense to make sure the
parasite survives.
andrei_says_ wrote 6 hours 33 min ago:
For more ideas - One can definitely see multigenerational
patterns of abuse and trauma as self reproducing parasites.
shawn_w wrote 12 hours 57 min ago:
See also John Barnes' Century Next Door books, where "memes"
are basically computer viruses that jump to running on human
brains, not just silicon chips. The results are... not pretty.
BiteCode_dev wrote 17 hours 5 min ago:
Pretty sure it destroys something in you as well. So many context
changes with no relation whatsoever and regular hooks that give you a
pinch.
We haven't evolved for that. Our brain is trying to figure out a
narrative between two things following each other. It needs time to
process stuff. And there is so much shock it can absorb at once. So
many "?!" and open loops in a day.
I made a TikTok account to at least know what people were talking
about. After 3 months, I got it.
And I deleted it.
I felt noticeably worse when using it, in a way that nothing bad for
me, including the news, refined sugar and pron, ever made me feel.
The destruction was more intense, more structural. I could feel it
gnarling.
In a way, such fast feedback is good, because it makes it easy to
stop, while I'm still eating tons of refined sugar.
rmunn wrote 11 hours 8 min ago:
Thirty years ago, I read a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death
by Neil Postman, in which he made very similar points about
broadcast television. I don't remember all his points, but I
vividly remember how talked about how you'll be watching a news
story about something awful, maybe an earthquake in which hundreds
of people died, and then with practically no warning you'll be
hearing a happy jingle from a toothpaste commercial. The
juxtaposition, he said, was bad for the human mind, and was going
to create a generation that couldn't focus on important things.
I suspect that the rapid-fire progression of one one-minute video
after another does something similar, and is also equally bad for
you.
MonkeyClub wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
The same is true with the "In other news..." technique of seguing
to the next story: its end result is overall desensitization and
passive consumption.
noahjk wrote 8 hours 52 min ago:
I've noticed that I can read or see something very emotionally
engaging - something that really resonates with me, so much so
that I'm maybe even choking up over it - and while I'm still
having that emotional response, move onto the next post. I almost
always have a moment of meta-reflection that scares me - why
wasn't I content to just sit there and process these big
emotions? How is the dopamine part of my brain so much more
powerful than even the emotional part, that it forces me to
continue what I'm doing rather than just feeling?
dyauspitr wrote 17 hours 14 min ago:
Itâs so addictive but so soul destroying. I feel dirty after
spending time on that platform. The term brainrot fits perfectly.
munificent wrote 14 hours 40 min ago:
Wait until a generation of people who have been mainlining that
since infancy while their thought patterns were still being formed
becomes old enough to vote.
saghm wrote 10 hours 31 min ago:
Oh no, will they elect a president who primarily operates in
ragebait, heavily uses social media, and has no meaningful
attention span for anything outside of receiving direct praise?
Good thing we have such enlightened voters right now who would
never for someone that!
something765478 wrote 16 hours 57 min ago:
Yeah, I had to get rid of my youtube plus subscription because I
was getting too addicted to the shorts.
jaredsohn wrote 17 hours 3 min ago:
I've started using these platforms for learning (stretch exercises,
argentine tango patterns/musicality I might want to lead, etc) and
am finding the experience to work better in those kinds of
situations. Agree it can be brain rot if using it for
entertainment, politics, etc.
jaredsohn wrote 15 hours 38 min ago:
To respond to everyone at once -
I have experience and teachers so I'm not solely relying on these
videos. I use the short videos as a fast discovery of what's out
there and I'll sometimes watch long videos afterward. LLM sites
also work well for this discovery and I use that sometimes but it
is a bit more work from me (which sounds strange to write re: AI)
because I have to type out what I want instead of relying on
algorithms that use data collected about me.
I use Facebook Reels (rather thank TikTok) which show me stuff
anyway after I click on a link shared by friends so having it
show me things relevant to learning seems like the best option
here in case I click on next video.
dyauspitr wrote 16 hours 22 min ago:
Why short form though? Iâve always learned much better from
long form, more comprehensive videos. Or I guess to put it
another way I donât believe Iâve ever learned anything
besides quick hacks on reels/shorts/tiktok. Not even quick guitar
licks.
xandrius wrote 16 hours 29 min ago:
Honest question: why wouldn't you simply search for exactly the
same things but on longer format platforms such as YouTube?
TeMPOraL wrote 7 hours 35 min ago:
TikTok isn't about searching, it's about tuning the algorithm
to find just the things you want, without necessarily being
explicit about what you want.
ericmcer wrote 16 hours 45 min ago:
It is still doing the same thing, the dopamine hit is just
feeling like you learned something instead of seeing something
funny/shocking/etc.
The idea you can gain any kind of actual experience/knowledge
about a thing through a series of 30s clips that are competing
with millions of other 30s clips to grab you is folly.
tombert wrote 17 hours 24 min ago:
This is part of why I hate TikTok so much.
I recently started doing SiriusXM again a lot. The reason I do this
is actually specifically because it gives me less choice than
something like Spotify or YouTube Music.
A lot of time when I do the autoplay of YouTube Music, if I don't
like the song in the first 15-20 seconds, I skip it to something
else. I eventually realized that a lot of songs that I end up really
liking require you listening to the entire song to come together.
The inability to skip to the next song on SiriusXM forces me to
listen to the song, and I've found a ton of songs that I likely would
have otherwise skipped with anything else.
I feel like with TikTok, we're effectively training ourselves to
ignore things that don't immediately grab our attention.
Maybe this is just my "Old Man Yells At Cloud" moment though.
cpt_sobel wrote 1 hour 46 min ago:
> less choice than something like Spotify or YouTube Music
For the same reason (plus curiosity of what people are listening to
in weird places) I recently switched to Radio Garden [0], highly
recommend it (not affiliated)
[0]
(HTM) [1]: https://radio.garden
sznio wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
I went back to CDs because the friction of having to stand up, walk
to the player and change the disc is enough to stop me from
skipping songs every few seconds.
For discovering new music, I go to the flea market every so often
and buy some random discs. Some are unlistenable, but a lot are
alright. I found New Mind[1] this way and really loved it.
[1]
(HTM) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Sharp#New_Mind
ErroneousBosh wrote 16 hours 45 min ago:
> I recently started doing SiriusXM again a lot. The reason I do
this is actually specifically because it gives me less choice than
something like Spotify or YouTube Music.
No, I think you're right.
I'm old enough to have swapped pirated cassettes of whatever was
doing the rounds in high school. I remain convinced that Appetite
for Destruction can only be listened to the way it was intended to
be heard, if it's been copied onto a ratty old TDK D90 that's been
getting bashed around in your schoolbag for months by your mate's
big brother who has the CD and a decent stereo.
There's a lot of stuff I listened to that I probably wouldn't have
if I'd had the selection that's available on streaming services.
When you got a new tape, that was Your New Tape, and you listened
to it over and over because you hadn't heard it a thousand times
yet. Don't like it? Meh, play it anyway, because you haven't heard
it a thousand times yet.
I got into so much music that's remained important to me because of
a chance tape swap.
Maybe Spotify et al needs instead of unskippable adverts,
unskippable tunes that are way outside your usual range of tastes.
"Here have some 10,000 Maniacs before you go back to that R'n'B
playlist!"
tombert wrote 15 hours 27 min ago:
Yeah, similar for me; when I was a teenager I would buy a CD
specifically I liked a single on the radio and put it in my car.
I would be too lazy to take it out and listen to something else,
so I'd listen to that CD dozens and dozens of times, and I would
grow to appreciate the non-single songs a lot, very often more
than the song I even bought the CD for.
The non-singles are generally a lot less "radio-friendly", almost
by definition, so a lot of artists were more willing to try stuff
that is a little less immediately-appealing, and there are a
bunch of albums I have basically memorized now because of that.
With Spotify and YouTube Music, there's an infinite number of
songs to choose from and as a result you never have the same
excuse to listen to the same songs over and over again. I'm not
necessarily saying it's "worse", just that I miss the way it used
to be.
squigz wrote 17 hours 15 min ago:
Check out KEXP and SomaFM. KEXP in particular is a great way to
discover new music that you might not normally listen to. [1]
(HTM) [1]: https://www.kexp.org/
(HTM) [2]: https://somafm.com/
Cthulhu_ wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
Also adding Radio Paradise, apparently one of the first online
radios ( [1] ). That said, it does have a skip (and pause)
mechanism, so if you really don't like something you can skip to
the next one.
(HTM) [1]: https://radioparadise.com/
keyringlight wrote 16 hours 57 min ago:
I'd say streaming radio in general is low profile in how it lets
you discover new things. I use the search/directory built into
foobar2000 or apps like radiodroid, but there are sites like [1]
for the web. It's an interesting and low cost way to find things
you wouldn't otherwise be exposed to and likely curated by
whoever is running the station. What really stood out to me is
how different countries or regions have their own tastes, or at
least are likely to be playing something different to local
broadcasts.
(HTM) [1]: https://www.radio-browser.info/
bsder wrote 13 hours 49 min ago:
The problem I have with streaming radio is that it seems to be
caught rehashing rather than discovering.
For example, I like SOMA's Underground 80s, but I also want to
hear new artists in the same vein. I haven't found any
streaming stations that are actively good at curating like
this.
Where are the streaming stations that play Smiths and
Smithereens but also play Blossoms and Johnny Marr's new stuff,
for example?
squigz wrote 13 hours 15 min ago:
Yeah, that's why I specifically called out KEXP for this, as
they do lots of live shows, themed segments, etc, that really
do enable discovery.
Unfortunately you're quite right about Soma (and probably
other streaming radio) - but I imagine licensing new music
can be difficult/expensive.
huhkerrf wrote 17 hours 50 min ago:
"First, make me care" is exactly right. But I also know that anytime
you have narrative non-fiction on here, someone without fail argues
that the author didn't get straight into the details.
furyofantares wrote 15 hours 9 min ago:
My personal distaste for typical narrative presentations of
interesting information is how often the first interesting details
come 4-5 paragraphs in and then are slowly peppered from there.
Really doesn't seem at odds with the advice here which can easily be
applied to the opening sentence or paragraph, and title.
acc077877 wrote 17 hours 34 min ago:
Someone may have already been curious about the topic beforehand.
Iâm guessing they already have some kind of itch or curiosity. For
example, someone who is interested in reading a dense technical
textbook that gets straight into the details likely has a preexisting
question waiting to be answered, which is why they care. Thatâs
what motivates them to keep reading, even when the material jumps
directly into the details
sublinear wrote 17 hours 34 min ago:
This is why good writing on the web is broken up into multiple posts
split by concern, and with links to the others at the top of the
article.
The real problem is when they SEO the shit out of it and replace
those links with irrelevant trash meant to steal your attention and
people only want to share the "make me care" posts.
The writers stop bothering even posting details when they have them.
They bury the lede because it's what the "make me care" crowd forces
them to do.
some_furry wrote 17 hours 41 min ago:
Know your audience: Technical people want the details.
Most people aren't technical.
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